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Collateral Damage
Collateral Damage X-Men Movieverse http://www.xmenmovieverse.com xmenmovieverse.com 7007 Description: Curious about NYPD Det. Chris Rossi's investigation into the Emma Frost, the Hellions, and his friend Sabitha, Forge comes a-calling to see what he can do to help. Or, you know, not. < WES > Old Brownstone Apts #210 - Rossi An ancient, faded elegance sketches the boundaries of this apartment, hinted at in crown molding and worn, faded floors. High walls span to high ceilings, pale yellow with the barest of white trim; at one end, three high windows gape to let in day's light or night's dark with equal indifference. A small kitchen pocks a hollow in one wall, a doorless entry that offers glimpses of an metal-framed refrigerator and a cabinet-hung microwave. On the other side of the small living room, a short hallway offers entrances to bathroom and bedroom, both doors battered with the wear and tear of age. In the living room are the basic accoutrements of comfort: sofas, chairs, table, television. Spartan accessories, betraying little of the owner; that task is left for the walls, hung with pictures of family and friends. Through them all runs the thread of blue, NYPD's uniform tailored to pride and vigor. Memorial Day has drawn Rossi out of doors -- long enough for the parade, for the picnic, for the inevitable family gathering and associated fight -- and it is with the smell of fresh grass and grill smoke in his hair that he makes his way down the hall towards his apartment. The wheelchair-bound lap is piled high with bags: maternal fondness; Italian hospitality. Over the burden, the green eyes are hard-pressed to find direction to steer by. Bump, go the legs against the long wall. Thump, goes a tumbled bag. "Shit," goes Rossi. Forge is leaning against Rossi's door as if it were his door or, at the least, meant for the leaning on by random passerby. He is examining metal knuckles. He smells basically of grease. Usual. Expected. Eyebrows quirk up over the piled mound of brown bags and leftovers. "Forge," Rossi recognizes, voice rattled through a mask of stapled packages. "Dammit. Mind grabbing this for me?" The wheelchair reverses, then climbs its way around the fallen baggage. "What's up? Come by to mess with my door again? Or are you planning to try something new and mess with me face to face?" "Mmm. The latter." Forge is polite enough to hook his hand backwards around the door knob and twist said door open. He nudges it with his heel into a low swing. "If you don't mind." Exasperation spits up at Forge. Under it slivers a wary resignation. "Grab the -- I think that's a salad." Rossi's head jerks back to indicate the fallen bag; the wheelchair hums sullenly past Forge into the apartment, a passing glance skipping off the inadequate lock. Politely, politely, Forge walks back out for the purpose of retrieving the bag. Then . . . he just as promptly follows Rossi back in. The bag is under his arm, the door is shoved back shut with a heel. "We have so much to talk about." "Yeah. Like the fact that you played me." There is irritation in the reply, but it lacks outright resentment. Rossi tosses his keys -- unused -- to the side table, where they collide with the wall and tumble to the floor. From there it is an easy arc towards the kitchen, wheels negotiating with some difficulty the narrow gap of door. "So did you go running straight to Melcross?" "Oh, yes. She was terribly traumatized," Forge says far too easily as he takes long strides behind Rossi. Into the kitchen -- with far less manuevering necessary. "Needless to say, I still know nothing, other than you're investigating her, and she wants you out of it for your own good." The black-crowned head turns in the dark room, the good left arm stretched to grope for the light switch. Electric gold spills across the room, etching harshly across Rossi's profile. "She tell you what she did to me the last time she tried to get me out of it?" "She told me 'I can't tell you, I really can't,' or something to that effect. Couldn't get anything out of her." Forge leans against the nearest counter. "So tell me." "You know Emma Frost is a telepath?" The refrigerator clinks open, paper bags arcing into the gaping, empty maw. "Very aware. We had a chat . . . about Sabitha, actually." Forge waves at his forehead. "Lucky to still be alive." "Yeah, well." The refrigerator door bumps shut. Chris's head turns up to his visitor, chin angling back to gesture the man out of the way. The dark face is set and sere. "She played me, too. Tricked me into a hotel room and--" With a whine, the wheelchair begins nudging backward out of the kitchen. Forge backs further against the counter, but not very helpfully. His eyes are blank, processing. "And what?" The cop shows his teeth, wheels scraping against the door's ribs and the plastic of the garbage can. "Erased my memories. Rewrote me a bit," he says stiffly, baritone flat. "All fun and games until someone loses their mind." "To keep you away from whatever'd you seen," Forge conjectures and again smoothly slips behind Rossi's wheelchair adventuring. Well, his heel catches a bit against the wall. "Then, you recovered. Understandable that you're irritated." "Professor Xavier unwiped me," Rossi clarifies, making a three-point turn to route him towards the back of the living room: the empty table; the blank notepad and pen. "/Irritated/ isn't the word for it. The stuff she--" His jaw locks. "I think . . . " Forge puts up the hand of neutrality as he takes another opportunity to lean -- against the wall near the table. "I think, and I might be wrong, that you're about to go through the same cycle that got you wiped in the first place. Maybe worse, this time. If the vibes I'm getting off this nonsense are correct, and, believe me, I'm the most intuitive of men . . . once your sniffing is sniffed out by Frost, she'll do anything to keep it quiet." "Then she can kill me like any self-respecting criminal." A bag tucked between thigh and chair arm is drawn out and tossed onto the tabletop; Rossi locks the wheelchair controls into place with a flick of the thumb and makes use of teeth and good left hand to rip his way in. "You asking me to stop investigating a case? For who: my benefit? Or Melcross's?" "Let's say both as, honestly, the only stake I /know/ is yours." Forge flicks an impassive finger. "Frost hates sharing. She'll ream you apart just for showing too much interest in 'one of hers' if you don't do it with the proper respect. I'd guess that what you're doing's liable to cause real damage. Frankly, I'd love to tear it down." Forge briefly verges gleeful in tone. "But Sabitha's terrified. Of what, well -- she keeps claiming she's already doomed, but we can drag you out somehow." Rossi sinks back in his chair, lacing his fingers together. Eyelids drag down, cutting pale green into crescent slivers. "Considering she sold me out to Frost, I can understand why she's scared," he says, accent tight. "Probably didn't even get thirty gold pieces for it." "I get the feeling," Forge clarifies gently as he presses the back of his hand into the wall, "that it was not an /intentional/ selling. Sometimes, people do awful things by accident. I probably wiped out several perfectly nice street gangs by accident, once upon a time." "It was intentional." Chris's hands flatten across the arms of the chair. Lips thin. "She knew exactly what she was doing, and what it would mean. She did it anyway." "How do you know?" "Why? So you can go running to your girlfriend?" "She's not my girlfriend." Forge's upraised palm is just that much more neutral. "I'm largely asexual. I do not hold girlfriends for any significant period of time. That aside, I'm wondering if she told you or what." The cop's mouth curves in a faint smile, green eyes unsympathetic above. "You could say she told me or what," Rossi says, taking up the paper bag again to spill its contents onto the table. Pill bottles roll and bump, colliding with each other in an enthusiastic race for freedom. "I really don't want to have to start interrogation," Forge sighs, while his eyes flick, caught, after the bottles. Too fast. Chris chases after one of the bottles with his good arm, fingers fumbling over the plastic tubing. "Rubber hoses are my line of work," he informs Forge. "What's your preference? Good cop? Bad cop?" An eye angles towards the metal arm. "Robocop?" "'Cop' has far too many legal trappings attached to it. I'm above the law." Forge uses the hand of gesturing to indicate an above-Rossi's-head. He is still watching the rolling bottles. Without helping. "If you'll agree to back off the case, and sign a contract, and allow me to leave a few sensors roundabout so I know you'll keep your word . . . we'll be just fine." "Beneath the law," Rossi articulates kindly, snagging one pill bottle before it tumbles to the floor. The other, skittish, dives with gleeful enthusiasm to the floor and makes a break for the sofa. "And fuck you. No offense." "Stubborn, stubborn." Forge is both disappointed, and rather admiring. He reaches for the bit of black weight in his holster. The pill bottle in Rossi's hand leaps, flung up in a backhanded arc that sends it flying past Forge's face. His own black weight is wedged between the curve of ribs and the wheelchair's wingtipped frame. Chris goes for his gun, left hand swift in new-learned agility. The bottle's clatter is ignored, aside from an involuntary twitch of Forge's right eye. His fingers close on the hilt of something angular and very black indeed. He draws it out in almost the same motion. He's fast, but not inhumanly so. And perhaps not cop so. Rossi's fast, but not inhumanly so. And perhaps not Forge so. The glock makes its appearance at the same time, pointed from waist-level to a cop's choice of target: the torso, largest and easiest shot. Hard green eyes sharpen on the other man, pulse racing under the jaw in adrenaline's swift kick. Mexican standoff. The weapon is a long barrelled thing -- but not easily identifiable as anything, other than a projectile weapon after the broad design of a miniature rifle. Forge's hand is at shoulder level, and the barrel is pointed down at Rossi's chest. Forge laughs. "Well." Rossi is not laughing. "Isn't this against the poodle code?" he demands, the words clipped short and stripped of accent. "Using guns?" "The poodle /what/?" Forge's metal forefinger is eased on the trigger, as far as one can determine ease from metallic joints. "You guys," Rossi explains, voice harsh. "You, Summers, Ororo -- the poodle squad. Isn't that against your code?" "I'm not an X-Man," Forge explains, his voice fast, but still timbred inappropriate light. A muscle leaps in Rossi's jaw. "That's nice," he grits out through his teeth. "You going to put down your gun?" "You first." And both neutrality and lightness finally disappate, leaving Forge's voice sounding hard. "I'm the cop," Rossi points out. "Not to mention I'm handicapped. It's my apartment. You put yours down first." "But I'd rather not." The other man makes a strangled noise of annoyance in the back of his throat. The gun steadies, elbow propped on the wheelchair's arm. "Then I'd rather not. Tell you what." Rossi jerks his head towards the apartment door. "Why don't you get the fuck out?" "More or less, I would have accomplished nothing. Look." Forge's tone is back to friendly, if his position has not changed at all. Tensed and readied save for that easy finger. "This is a stun. You'll hardly feel it." "This is a glock," Rossi tells Forge, decidedly unfriendly. "You'll definitely be feeling this. Put the gun down, man. I may not be on the job, but I'm still a cop, and I'll be damned if I'm getting shot again this month. Come back in June." "See, isn't a glock rather excessive?" The friendliness is definitely faux and lean at this point. Forge is just not /reaching/ this man. Still, the directness of his aim wavers a little bit. "I'm Italian. I like excessive. It's my middle name. Jesus Christ," Rossi says with deep frustration. "Jean's right about you. You're fucking insane." "Yes." Forge lowers the gun gradually. "I was not meant for this world." Green eyes flicker, following the path of the lowering gun in swift glances down and back up again to Forge's face. "That's for damn sure. You on some kind of medication? Prozac? Some kind of anti-psychotic?" "Nah." Forge sheaths the gun, uninterested. He is looking at the upper rim of Rossi's right wheel speculatively. "Completely nuts," Rossi says with deep irritation. His breath and pulse equalized, he cautiously lowers his own gun, settling it on his lap for easy access. "If it makes Melcross feel any better, you can tell her I'm not after her." "Oh, maybe." Forge is retracting on his full agreement thing. He continues to give that wheel a thoughtful examination. "And you're not?" Rossi's jaw tightens again, flexing with the stretch of muscle and tension. "I'm still a cop," he says over a bitter note. "She sold me out and arranged for a telepath to wipe my mind, not to mention the other shit -- but that wasn't technically illegal. I'm after bigger things." "Which would get you killed. Really, I ought to just stuff you in the closet." Forge's eyes lift from the wheel to meet Rossi's. His expression is all sympathy. "That could get /you/ killed." "Doubtful. You've not seen me in my efficiency!" "You haven't seen me in mine." Rossi peels a humorless grin. Fingertips, dangling at the end of the wheelchair's arm, twitch towards the gun again. "Feel free to tell Melcross that I remember everything, by the way. Including what happened in that hotel room. Tell her Talhurst wasn't there for the entire thing, would you?" "This is all very cryptic. Talhurst? I am not here to be a messenger boy. I am a free agent." Forge blows frustration through his teeth. Then, his eyes flash sudden epiphany. "Before I go, what does Jareth have to do with all this?" Caught by surprise, eyes flick towards the television and its file-laden top before skipping back to Forge in a glare of annoyance. "My computer crashed," Rossi says, peevishly. "It had a ... a flu. A germ. Whatever it is. Virus. Thing. --Get the fuck out." "Of course." Forge is guilty of a smirk. He looses a half bow and starts toward the door. Leisurely. "STD," Rossi remembers to throw onto the list of diseases, and sourly eyes Forge's retreating ass without fondness, his own shoulders hunched in the aftermath of thwarted temper. A stop. Innocent. "Can I use your bathroom?" The shoulders rise higher. "You tried to shoot me." "I could pee on your floor." "Fuck," says Chris, with godlike wrath. "You'd better have good aim." The free hand gestures angrily: use the bathroom. He does not overflow with the honey of hospitality. "I do," Forge promises, and with his great efficience, moves from door to bathroom. The light turns on and the door closes behind him. Just, you know, bathroom using. Rossi lapses into silence and brooding. Mostly silence. "Nothing better blow up in there, you hear me? Asshole." Mostly brooding. "Nothing's going to blow up," Forge promises. While sitting on the toilet and removing scraps of wire from inside his arm. The cop exhales a sigh and grunts to himself before rolling his chair around. Pill container under the couch. He stoops awkwardly over his lap, hair shagging across the wide brow as he cranes to look. Here, boy. C'mere, boy. Forge has an ear canted to the outside, but he doesn't emerge just yet. One cannot have an element of surprise when proceeding through a closed door. People notice. People stop making distracted noises. Forge pulls rubber gloves (thick) from his pocket, before sticking a bit of raw connector between wire and wire. Getting there. The pill bottle is annoying. Rossi attempts to push the sofa over, like a grimly determined rhinosaurus faced by an elephant asleep on his dinner. The wheelchair braces itself against the bottom of the couch. Motors chug. And chug. And chug. The sofa yawns. Bored now. Chris curses. Wire to wire to wire. A small network. A small net, in fact. Forge loops it between his fingers and across his palm and flexes. Wires gleam silver over rubber. Good enough. Forge removes the glove from his real hand with a bite on the thumb and a pull of his teeth. He lets it fall to the bathroom floor, stands, and opens the door, keeping the netted hand low and close to his side. The wheelchair is complaining bitterly about moving furniture that does not choose to be moved. Rossi relents with grudging compassion, thumb easing off the controls. He glances askance as the door opens. "You're worse than Lensherr," he tells the emerging man. "You don't flush /and/ you don't wash your hands. What is with you mutants? You never went to preschool? Who potty-trained you? Henry Kissinger?" "I would be proud to be potty-trained by Henry Kissinger," Forge says with mock stiffness through one of his easy smiles. Could be walking through the park. "And you should be proud to have a genuine piece of mutant crap you can fish out later." Forge's park walk is looking to take him brushingly past the wheelchair, but at least he's headed toward the door. "I'll send Xavier the bill for the housekeeping," Rossi tells the sofa with marked ingratitude, slamming the chair forward again. The couch remains stubbornly unmoved. Chris sighs. "Before you leave, mind fishing that pill bottle out from under the damn couch?" "What? Oh." Forge sidesteps and crouches beside Chris's chair. "Certainly." It is sad to say that as Forge pulls forward out of the crouch and toward an under-couch reach, he trips, and his hand jerks suddenly right. The wire network on the back of Forge's glove jars hard against Chris's thigh. Zap. Rossi is eloquent in the face of such manly displays of affection. He says, "Nngggh." Muscles spasm as current races through the chair-trapped body; Chris's spine arcs, razoring him into sharp, hard lines of pain and -- oh, convenient thing -- unconsciousness. Ow. Forge promptly removes his hand -- although it seems to want to stay there. Current is, indeed, affectionate. No matter how carefully modulated the volts are, affectionate. "Sorry," Forge says, and strains his thumb back until one of the powered connectors of the wire net breaks apart, and breaks the current. "Although, really. You ought to know better." Forge shakes off the net. He really ought. Never lend your bathroom to mutants. Rossi slumps in his wheelchair, head lolling over the outflung arm, an innocent lamb. Helpless. Vulnerable. From a certain point of view, very hot. "Good thing I'm asexual," Forge says with relief, only, no, he doesn't say that. He does not see Rossi as hot, although he finds his hard-edged naivete regarding bathrooms very platonically endearing. But there are other things to do. Such as search the apartment for a laptop. There is no laptop. There is, it is true, a large desktop in the bedroom down the hall: a painfully neat affair, almost spartan in its decorations. The PC is ancient, and shows the bruises of an abusive owner. On the desk beside it is a plastic CD case containing a homemade disc labeled in green permanent ink. "Melcross's hard drive," it says. Well. One can't get more obvious than that, can one? One truly cannot. Although we are sad to say that Forge pockets the CD case with an abortive whistle and then turns his attention to the ancient PC anyway. Its own hard drive in particular. We are sad to say that, in the course of scientific inquiry, Forge draws the miniature rifle electric stun (etc) from his holder and shoots the thing. This makes the PC unhappy. It explodes. Which, one must presume, makes Forge happy? Forge is very happy. Indeed, he holsters his stun with a pleased whistle and meanders back out into the main room. "Hmmm." His eyes fall contemplatively on the unconscious Rossi. Who is, by the way, still hot. From ... a certain point of view. Sadly, still unconscious. Any minute now, a little bit of drool may come out of the corner of his mouth, which will not be so hot. One must not think too hard about the future. To think about the future is like thinking about consequences and to think about consequences ruins the now. This moment. And Forge finds this moment rather delightful. He approaches the wheelchair and shoves his arms frontwise under Rossi's armpits, for the sake of heaving him out of the wheelchair. Rossi is heaved. It is not exciting. He remains unconscious and, for all his lack of consciousness, not particularly floppy. Casts, of course. Broken arm and two broken legs can contribute to stiffness. And then there is his size. Forge grunts. But preserveres. He is fond of Rossi's lack of floppiness. Although far less so of his size as he half carries, half drags Rossi toward the bedroom. Presumably a closet as well. Oh let there be a closet. There is a closet! A pleasant little coat closet, just as the hallway starts. It is small and cramped, and full of -- well, coats, as well as assorted other things that inevitably accumulate in a closet specifically designed for other uses. Rossi's glock tumbles to the floor at some point during the maneuvers. It joins the pill bottle under the sofa. Hi! Forge determines himself too tired to be much bothered about Rossi's comfort, which really isn't Forge's fault. Some people are naturally difficult. And this should not be reinforced by comfort. Thus does Forge shove Rossi into the closet, as is, best he can. Little bits and pieces of Rossi do not fit. That is to say, his legs. And his head. Perhaps it would be better if he were hung in the closet, like one of the coats? Gosh, it would, but Forge just can't /do/ that without violating all kinds of things he can't violate in a short period of time. Forge decides to leave Rossi as is. Just make sure the door to the bedroom, or any workable door, is welded shut. Boy, Rossi will be pissed. He will have all sorts of things to say to Forge when he gets out. Most of them will be four-letter words. At some point, he will lapse into Italian. Possibly there will be bullet points. Forge sure wishes he could leave a bu-- oh, gosh, he /can/. After welding the bedroom door nicely secure, Forge works through some quick assembly and places a nice recording/transmitting device, the size of a baby tree-frog, on this side of the door. That accomplished? He's heading out. After fishing under the couch for the glock. Because, hey, petty thievery is cool. Twit. Somewhere in a nearby building, Federal officers are stirring uneasily. "Awful quiet in there," one says, leaning into his right headphone. "Think we should go check on him?" The other agent mumbles, his mouth full of french fries. He swallows. "They were pointing guns at each other a few minutes ago," he points out. "/Now/ you want to go in?" "He might be hurt." "He might be dead." "Good point," says the listening agent, uncomfortably. "Let's just wait it out." category:X-Men Movieverse Logs